ASRock Z97 Extreme6 Tests Samsung XP941 M.2 x4, Plextor M6e M.2 x2 and Samsung 840 Pro SATA 3 SSDs

SAMSUNG XP941 PCIE GEN 2 X4 M.2 SSD

The Samsung XP941 is the only SSD on the market that is capable of PCIe x4 performance over 1GB/s at present.  As with many Samsung products, it is technically not even a retail product and must be purchased through third party resellers.

We were lucky to have the XP941 in our hands and tested long before others and, not only have we been able to test it in several different configurations, we have also been able to contribute in the advance of this technology through our input to manufacturers.

ATTO DISK BENCHMARK VER. 2.46

ATTO Disk Benchmark is perhaps one of the oldest benchmarks going and is definitely the main staple for manufacturer performance specifications. ATTO uses RAW or compressible data and, for our benchmarks, we use a set length of 256mb and test both the read and write performance of various transfer sizes ranging from 0.5 to 8192kb. Manufacturers prefer this method of testing as it deals with raw (compressible) data rather than random (includes incompressible data) which, although more realistic, results in lower performance results.

The XP941 starts out strong with speeds of just over 1GB/s read and write performance.  A quick check of our original reports might show speeds a bit higher, but relatively consistent.

CRYSTAL DISK BENCHMARK VER. 3.0 X64

Crystal Disk Benchmark is used to measure read and write performance through sampling of highly compressible data (oFill/1Fill), or random data which is, for the most part, incompressible. Performance is virtually identical, regardless of data sample so we thought we might cheat just a bit and throw in an ‘optimized’ result.

It’s always nice seeing low 4K random write performance of 122MB/s, but remember, this is the result of our system being left at it’s default BIOS settings where the C States are optimized and turned off.

AS SSD BENCHMARK VER 1.6

Up until recently, AS SSD was the only benchmark created specifically for SSD testing and it uses incompressible data.  AS SSD, for the most part, gives us the ‘worst case scenario’ in SSD transfer speeds because of its use of incompressible data and many enthusiasts like to AS SSD for their needs. Transfer speeds are displayed on the left with IOPS results on the right.

AS SSD shows superior performance to Crystal Diskmarks and hitting 100K IOPS is ideal.  Take a look at this first file transfer speed in the AS SSD Copy Bench:

ANVIL STORAGE UTILITIES PROFESSIONAL (BETA)

You may not see this for long (and it’s definitely not common) but you get a freebee simply for reading! Over the last little while, we have been assisting with beta testing new benchmark software called Anvil Storage Utilities which is an absolutely amazing SSD benchmarking utility. Not only does it have a preset SSD benchmark, but also, it has included such things as endurance testing and threaded I/O read, write and mixed tests, all of which are very simple to understand and use in our benchmark testing.

PCMARK VANTAGE X64 HDD SUITE

The SSD Review uses benchmark software called PCMark Vantage x64 HDD Suite to create testing scenarios that might be used in the typical user experience. There are eight tests in all and the tests performed record the speed of data movement in MB/s to which they are then given a numerical score after all of the tests are complete. The simulations are as follows:

• Windows Defender In Use
• Streaming Data from storage in games such as Alan Wake which allows for massive worlds and riveting non-stop action
• Importing digital photos into Windows Photo Gallery
• Starting the Vista Operating System
• Home Video editing with Movie Maker which can be very time consuming
• Media Center which can handle video recording, time shifting and streaming from Windows media center to an extender such as XBox
• Cataloging a music library
• Starting applications

123698 points is an absolutely amazing result for any single form factor SSD and it great to see true to life transfer speeds as high as 818MB/s when testing in Windows Media Center.